📖 Story Time 📍 Judd Lake, Alaska
Until a few years ago, I was the rare Texan who had never gone fishing, never gone hunting, and never gone camping.
I was raised in Texas from the age of five. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Texas but never leaned into many of the stereotypical Texan experiences expected of me. I don’t ride horses. My Friday nights were never about football. I’ve never been to a rodeo, and I don’t own a Stetson.
The only cowboy hat I have is in leopard print.
I left Texas in my 20s, heading to Washington, D.C., Chicago, London, and New York. In these cities, fancy restaurants, trendy bars, and eclectic art galleries are more of a draw than the fishing holes, mountains, and shooting ranges that lure visitors to Alaska.
Still, I wasn’t about to pass up an assignment to write about Alaska, the last American frontier. That assignment took me from New York to Judd Lake, a resort area in south-central Alaska that’s miles from the nearest road and only accessible by floatplane. By the time I got there, one thing became crystal clear. Alaska is a place unlike any other. It’s more than a state. Alaska is a state of mind.
Not In New York City Anymore
Alaska is the opposite of New York City, where I lived at the time, in every way. There are no harried public transit commuters, no seemingly endless sirens, and no tightly engineered schedules. Alaska is a place where the weather dictates the activities of the day, where nature dominates the landscape, and where Zoom has limited reach, especially for travelers willing to venture inland.
From the second I stepped into the bright daylight that characterizes a summer evening in Anchorage, I felt like a different person ready to explore all facets of Alaskan life. I leaned all the way in.
I had no intention of even trying out the shooting range at the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge on Judd Lake, where I was staying. But I was in Alaska, and the lodge had a shooting range. So with a few hours to kill, I gave it shot.
It was a surprisingly relaxing way to spend an afternoon. Focusing on clay targets cleared the clutter from my mind and my skepticism about that weekend’s other planned activities. Among them? Fishing, something I also hadn’t done before.
Spoiler: I didn’t hate it.
When it came time to put on my fishing gear, I had no idea what was happening. Wading pants came up to my chest and water boots felt like buckets on my tiny feet. But by then, I was full-on going with it.
It took me a minute to figure out how to cast my reel, but shortly after landing on the river, I caught my first fish — an arctic grayling.
Like my bowling and pool games, it was a fluke. I didn’t catch anything else, but on that river, I learned that fishing isn’t about the fish but about the experience of getting away from it all and leaning into the place you are.
So I channeled my best outdoors person for one more day and put myself in a climbing harness on the side of a rocky cliff 1,200 feet over a remote glacier more than 80 miles from the nearest road.
When In Alaska, Be Fearless
I had never even owned a pair of proper hiking shoes before this trip. Between that and my record climbing various gym walls, I had planned on sitting this one out.
Getting to the top would require successfully completing a Ferrata-style climbing route and performing a tightrope walk across two suspension bridges. A practice course at the bottom of the climbing route made it seem almost doable. Between that, a safety harness, the promise of epic views, and a patient guide, I was ready to go for it.
I somehow made it to the top and across both bridges, and by the time I left Alaska, I felt like I’d discovered another version of myself.
Instead of bemoaning the large swaths of nothing in between cities, I’d come to appreciate wide open spaces. It was a trip that made me feel more in touch with my inner Texan than two decades of living in the Lone Star State.
